


Of Destruction and Forgiveness

by jacyevans



Series: Ten Times Undone [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Spoilers for 3x23 Death, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 05:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1334632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacyevans/pseuds/jacyevans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When everything dies down - when the nogitsune is dead and Allison's funeral is over, when they finally have a chance to breathe - Derek finds Scott sitting on his couch with a bottle of Jack in his lap, stinking of anger and grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Destruction and Forgiveness

When everything dies down - when the nogitsune is dead and Allison's funeral is over, when they finally have a chance to breathe - Derek finds Scott sitting on his couch with a bottle of Jack in his lap, stinking of anger and grief.

“Stiles is with Lydia,” he says, like Derek might need an explanation.

Derek shakes his head. "You can't get drunk," he says, and Scott huffs a bitter laugh, the sort that sounds so out of place from Scott's mouth.

He stares at the wall, jaw clenched tightly. He takes another sip. "Doesn't matter."

Derek goes into the kitchen, into the cabinet under the sink. He grabs one of the plain, glass bottles, kicks the door shut with his foot, and goes back to the couch.

Scott starts to lift the bottle of Jack to his mouth, and Derek covers the opening with his palm. He offers up the bottle in his hand. "Try this instead."

Scott places the Jack on the floor and takes the bottle from Derek, eyes wary as he unscrews the cap and the pungent smell of liquor wafts into the air. He brings the bottle to his lips, sputtering around the first sip.

"What the hell is this?" he gasps, and Derek smirks, settling on the arm of the couch.

"Whiskey. Laced with enough wolfsbane to give you the same effects as being drunk. Peter makes it." He doesn't say that Peter learned how from his sister, that for all that Talia was the alpha, strong and authoritative, she had a mischievous streak that could put a Trickster to shame.

Two weeks before the fire, his entire family gathered out in the woods for the full moon, building a bonfire in one of the clearings behind the house. Cora filched a couple of bottles while Peter was occupied playing poker with their Uncle Edgar. She dragged Laura and Derek and all of their younger cousins back to the house, where they drank so much, Derek couldn’t see straight, Cora sick to her stomach. Laura remained convinced the ground was actually spinning, while Peter laughed himself sick, holding onto the railing for support. Talia simply raised an eyebrow and sent them to bed. She woke them up the next morning with all of the subtlety of an air horn and put them to work, cleaning up the mess left behind.

Derek swallows, rubbing a hand over his eyes. After the funeral, Scott took off for the woods, howling with his grief. The sound reverberated in Derek’s chest, until he and Isaac were howling, too, Stiles, Lydia and Kira huddled around each other while they cried. They spent the night wrapped up together on Scott’s bed, not an inch of space between them.

"That's encouraging," Scott mutters, breaking Derek free from his nostalgia. He takes another long sip before passing the bottle off to Derek. The liquor burns down Derek's throat, all the way into his lungs, a fire curling in his belly and chasing the memories away.

They pass the bottle back and forth, Derek watching Scott while Scott watches the wall.

"I should have saved her," Scott says quietly, after a long period of silence. He swallows, hand clenched into a fist. "It all happened so fast. One minute, I thought we had a chance of winning, and the next, she --" His fingers dig into his jeans, fabric tearing and the coppery scent of blood in the air as his claws pierce the material. "I can't sleep. When I do, all I see is that sword through her chest. I should have saved her," he says again, sniffing past the tears falling down his cheeks.

Derek leans forward with his hands clasped in his lap. "You couldn't have saved her, Scott.”

Scott growls, eyes flashing as he gets up to pace. He drags the bottle to his lips. "I should have bitten her, Derek." He takes another sip. "I mean, she was in my arms, she-- she was dying, I should have at least tried."

"The bite wouldn't have taken," Derek says, swallowing around the lump in his throat; the image of Paige dying in his arms is seared into his memory: watching the life drain out of her body, digging his claws into her chest, the light in her eyes snuffed out. He would never wish that sort of guilt on anyone.

"What good is being an alpha if I can't save anybody?"

"You saved Stiles," Derek says, and Scott barks a laugh.

"And I was barely in time to save him, too." Scott hurls the bottle across the room; it shatters against the wall, brown liquid and glass shards spilling across the floor. He takes a few breaths, chest heaving before he sinks down onto the couch, like all of the energy has been drained out of him. He digs his hands into his hair.

"I don't know what to do," he says, soft and broken; somehow, it makes him look more like a kid than when he was first bitten, lost, vulnerable, and terrified. "I _hate_ feeling like this."

"Scott." Derek waits for Scott to lift his head. "You will _always_ feel like this. I know it seems unbearable right now. But one day, you're going to wake up, and its going to be a little easier. Until you feel like you can bear it."

Derek thinks of the mind-numbing ache in his chest when his family burned, the hole left by Laura's death he thought would never be filled; Erica and Boyd and now Allison, the empty spaces in his heart where pack used to be, the pain like someone reached inside of him and ripped out something vital. He filled those spaces with anger and vengeance until he learned how to breathe around them, until Cora brushed a kiss across his forehead at a cafe in Brazil and told him there was nothing to forgive. 

There was nothing left for Scott to destroy, no one for him to forgive, besides himself.

"It's not fair," Scott whispers, and Derek leans across the couch to squeeze his shoulder. He sits beside Scott until they're pressed together, shoulder to knee.

"It never is."

**Author's Note:**

> This is the product of a conversation last night, where in between a lot of crying and ranting, riverchic informed me she had just started a fic where Stiles and Lydia get drunk together to deal with their grief. I suggested that Scott would go to Derek. "You write that one," she said. And so I did.
> 
> And now we have a series.
> 
> Epic thank you to [dream_mancer](http://archiveofourown.org/users/riverchic1998/pseuds/riverchic1998) for betaing this for me and for dragging me on this crazy ride.
> 
> My ask box on [tumblr](http://seaboundandaimless.tumblr.com/) is always open. Feel free to come say hello!


End file.
